City need to keep on building - Caldwell

A first half goal from Josh Magennis proved enough for Gary Caldwell’s side against the newly-promoted Championship outfit at the Oxford Sports Park.

In what was another worthwhile run-out for the Grecians, City boss Caldwell was again impressed by what he saw from his side, who this weekend face more Championship opposition in the shape of Bristol City.

“It was a brilliant test, it was a really good game,” said the Scotsman. “You could see the speed of the game had went up from what we faced so far the quality of the opposition was really high but I thought we played well for large parts of the game.

“I thought defensively we were really well organised and hard to break down. Joe [Whitworth] made a fantastic save in the second half to keep that first clean sheet of pre-season, which is always good, and at times we played some really good football.

“We scored a great goal through Josh with a brilliant cross from Ben, so it was another good workout for everyone, good minutes for everyone and we move on to obviously recovery tomorrow and preparation for Saturday.”

With just two weeks to the start of the new season, Caldwell is hoping short trek up the M5 to Bristol’s performance centre will again provide a decent test for his team ahead of their opening fixture against Rotherham United on August 10.

“Saturday will be another really good test,” added Caldwell. “We played there last year and it was excellent facilities and a brilliant pitch so we’re looking forward to that, it’s just really building on what we’ve done today. I think we said the level of opposition will go up and there’ll be moments where we have to obviously defend against that.

"We will have to be better again on Saturday because those moments, such as when Joe made a brilliant save and the strikers missed other chances, we won’t get away with on Saturday so we have to tighten up defensively and keep building in position.”